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Master of Child and Family Health: Critical analysis

What is critical analysis?

Critical analysis is where you are asked to consider the good and bad points of articles. You may be asked to use a checklist such as CASP to analyse the article and consider the various points. 

This requires you to be a critical thinker. This is someone who thinks actively and analytically, and who investigates information carefully. They do not accept things without analysing information and checking if it is true or not. Critical thinkers look carefully at relationships between ideas and they consider whether the relationships are genuine, reasonable, and appropriate. They don’t take assumptions for granted and weigh claims carefully for evidence.

Critical thinking involves active questioning of the information you have. Instead of taking information for granted, you need to think about it and evaluate it before forming an opinion of your own.

Refreshing your critical analysis skills

Critical thinking

Critical thinking is when you evaluate an issue objectively to form a judgement, including weighing up the evidence to determine the strengths and weaknesses of an argument. This can include:

  • Looking at the arguments presented
  • Assessing whether or not they are reasonable and well supported
  • Looking for gaps or flaws in the arguments
  • Keeping an open mind
  • Considering what information may be missing and what assumptions the author is making

Arguments

At university, an argument is a series of connected statements which are intended to lead to a conclusion that has reasons for stating it. An argument has three parts:

  1. The premises (reasons or assumptions)
  2. The conclusion (or contention)
  3. The inference (or link) from the premises to the conclusion

An example argument may be:

If metals heat when expanded, and iron is metal, then iron will expand when heated.

Here, the premises are:

Metals expand when heated
Iron is a metal

The conclusion is:

Iron will expand when heated.

The inference is made from the reasons, or premises, to the conclusion.

At university, you need to back up your arguments with evidence, or reasons. In the example argument above, the premise that iron is a metal could be backed up by the periodic table, and the premise that metal expands when heated by a journal article. 

Academic arguments are much more complex than this example, but the principle of establishing premises, conclusions and inferences backed up with evidence is the same.

Reading critically

When you read, examine the text by considering the following questions:

  • Objectives: What does the article set out to do? What is the intention or purpose?
  • Question: What is the research question? Are you convinced by the answers?
  • Hypotheses: Are there specific hypotheses? Are they testable?
  • Theory: Is there an explicit theoretical framework? If not, are there important theoretical assumptions or beliefs?
  • Concepts: What are the central concepts in the article? Are they clearly defined? Has the author overlooked key concepts?
  • Argument: What is the central argument? Is it valid and are the premises sound? Do you agree with it?
  • Method: What methods are employed to test the hypothesis(es)? Are they reasonable?
  • Evidence: Is evidence provided in the article? How adequate is it?
  • Values: What value judgments does the author express? Are they clear or are they tacit/hidden? Should they be made clearer?
  • Literature: How does the work fit into the wider literature in the area? Is important literature in the field missing?
  • Contribution: How well does the work advance our knowledge of the subject?
  • Style: How clear is the author's language/style/expression? (adapted from ANU, 2022)

In relation to methodological considerations, ask yourself:

  • Is the method sound and validated, considering other research in the field?
  • Is there a sufficient sample size of participants tested (if a quantitative study)?
  • If questionnaires are used, are the questions clear and unambiguous? Fair/unfair?
  • Are common flaws identified in the research design, such as confirmation or observer bias, or unexplained or overstated results?
  • Does the evidence support the conclusions?

You can also use more formal checklists such as CASP to evaluate studies.

Study skills

The Study Skills website has information on critical thinking and analysis.

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